The Life Cycle of Butterflies
by Toricchi
Summary: [LOVELESS oneshot] A visit to the park brings out a side of Soubi Ritsuka has never seen before.


A very quick _LOVELESS_ fanfic. Written to celebrate the _LOVELESS_ LJ community breaking five hundred members! Comm members may have already read this. All commentary is very much welcome!

**DISCLAIMER: **_LOVELESS_ belongs to Kouga Yun. A.K.A not Trakkun (though it wouldn't mind having Kio...)

The Life Cycle of Butterflies

The sound of the doorbell buzzing, horribly loud in the Sunday afternoon quiet, startles Ritsuka. He doesn't like the way it sounds, the way it seems to reverberate and fill up the room until there's no space left for him, so when he gets up and snatches his bag from the bedpost, he does it as much out of a need to make it stop ringing in his ears as a desire to see who's on the other side.

He pauses at one door, ear against the wood.

"I'm going out, mother."

He feels the words hang expectantly in the air and waits for it, the screaming and crying and accusing that inevitably follows such an pronouncement, but the house remains silent except for his words and the fading echo of the doorbell. She's still asleep, and he's safe, for now.

He takes a few moments to burn incense and pray at Seimei's altar, and then he can put it off no longer. So he opens the door, and a smiling Soubi makes to move inside.

"You don't need to come in," Ritsuka mumbles, with only the barest attempt at civility. Maybe none at all. But he can't quite describe why he doesn't want Soubi to come into his house. After all, Soubi has been in_his_ room before...

Well. It would be too bothersome to try to explain to his parents exactly where he was going with an adult and why. Not quite satisfying, but it'll do for the moment, because Ritsuka doesn't want to think about that nagging little voice in the back of his mind that suggests maybe he wants to keep Soubi all to himself. One special little secret, just for_this_ Ritsuka...

He shakes his head abruptly to chase the thought away, and notices he's been standing in the doorway, key in hand, with Soubi looking on. He flushes slightly and steps out, locking the door behind him and wishing he could see what Soubi was thinking behind that closed-eyed half-smile he always seemed to be wearing.

"So, Ritsuka," Soubi says as Ritsuka pockets the key and they walk down the footpath together. "Where would you like to go today?"

Ritsuka pats his bag. "The park. I want to make more memories."

Soubi's eyes twinkle behind his glasses. "The park it is, then."

x-x-x

Spring has exploded in the park, and done so spectacularly, with wild blooms rioting in flower beds, trying to overrun the neat lines, and a gentle breeze shaking the _sakura_ from their branches and scattering them over both the new grass and the people taking the chance to escape their busy schedules and steal a moment or two with their families.

Ritsuka drops his bag on the park bench Soubi managed to wheedle from a middle-aged couple, and begins to take pictures.

Lots of pictures. The children playing; adults chatting and laughing over picnic lunches. The trees. The flowers. The birds.

"Is there any reason you need to take so many pictures, Ritsuka?" Soubi asks quietly from his place watching and guarding their belongings.

Ritsuka pauses, winds back to take a look at the last few photos.

"It's such a beautiful day, right, Soubi? Everyone's so happy now, but they'll go home at the end of the day and then they'll forget they ever came. And it's sad, because there'll never be another day like this one, so I have to make memories to be sure it isn't forgotten!"

To make sure _Spring_ isn't forgotten, he adds to himself.

"Ah," Soubi agrees, smiling that half-smile again, the one that hides his eyes so Ritsuka doesn't really know what he thinks. Ritsuka sits down on the bench next to him while he shuffles through the photos, trying to decide which ones are worth keeping.

And then, looking so fragile it could have been blown there by the wind, a butterfly lands on Ritsuka's hand. Ritsuka watches it in fascination and very carefully, so as not to scare it away, hands the camera to Soubi.

"Can you take a picture of it please, Soubi?" he asks.

Something odd and dark flashes in Soubi's eyes, and he reaches out, not with the camera, but with his hand, crumpling the delicate body with a heavy swipe before Ritsuka realises what's going on.

"What! Soubi! Why did you do that? It was so beautiful!" he says angrily, not understanding Soubi's action and not knowing why it upsets him so much.

"Why?" Soubi chuckles. "It may be beautiful, Ritsuka, but it's meaningless."

Ritsuka thumps back onto the bench.

"Meaningless," he continues, "because it can be crushed like _that_, and nothing will be the different for it. It only lives for a week, Ritsuka," he says tautly. "How can it achieve, how can it come to know anything in that time, when it spends its days flitting around doing nothing? The joys, the pain of living..."

Soubi's eyes are clouded and distant, like Ritsuka's trying to see through dirty glass. They're _strange_, like this is a different Soubi from the smiling, teasing one he's come to know, even from the deadly serious and sometimes frightening Soubi that comes out to fight. There's a pain in those eyes, and Ritsuka recognizes it because pain haunts him too:

_Seimei_.

"Geez, Soubi," he says finally, shattering the bizarre wall of silence that seems to have built up around them. "You're so weird." He takes his camera and deliberately zooms in on Soubi's face.

"What was that for?" he asks, and the amused smile is back.

Ritsuka puts his camera back in the bag. "Because you change so often, Soubi. If I don't make a memory of your face as it is now, it might be gone forever."

Soubi only laughs, tossing his hair back off his face. "Let's go home, Ritsuka." He takes Ritsuka's bag and Ritsuka lets him. His hands are busy with the camera, comparing the photo of Soubi with Soubi now. Soubi's eyes are shuttered up tight, the glasses glinting in the sunlight, but the Soubi-in-the-picture's are raw and open.

_Agatsuma Soubi. Who are you, really?_


End file.
